Among those who have argued strongly for the centrality of the ascension narratives in Luke’s overall design is Eric Franklin. Franklin develops the somewhat controversial thesis that the ascension is used by Luke not to abandon eschatology for history, as the ‘delay of the parousia’ scholars would have it, but to bring history into the service of eschatology, in view of growing uncertainty about the timing of the parousia. For Luke, he maintains, it is no longer the end of history which is to guarantee